South Korean Film 2020
Peninsula (South Korean Zombie Film Review & Summary)
- Genre: Horror, Zombie Movie, Thriller
- Release Date: 2020
- Origin: South Korea; Sequel to Train To Busan
- Film: 116 minutes
Cast
- Gang Dong-won as Jung-seok (Marine Captain)
- Lee Jung-hyun as Min-jung (Mother of the Two Girls)
- Lee Re as Jooni (Eldest Girl – driving genius)
- Ye Won-lee as Yu Jin (Second daughter genius with remote-controlled cars)
- Kwon Hae-hyo as Elder Kim (Stand-in grandad for the girls)
- Kim Min-jae as Sergeant Hwang
- Koo Kyo-hwan as Captain Seo
- Kim Do-yoon as Chul-min
- Lee Ye-won as Yu-jin
- Jang So-yeon as Jung-seok’s elder sister
- Moon Woo-jin as Dong-hwan
- Kim Kyu-baek as Private Kim
- Bella Rahim as Major Jane (Works for the (UN)
Reviewed by Peter Morton
This is one excellent & exciting movie. We watched the enjoyable first movie ‘Train to Busan’. It is said that sequels rarely if ever are as good as the first movie, this is one is as good if not better. Costing $8 million (£6million) it has so far made $100 million (£77 million). This sequel movie is set four years on from the zombie apocalypse devasting the Korean peninsula. Whilst zombies play a lesser role, the action and suspense are palpable. The hero is a south Korean Marine army captain (Jung-Seok), adept at martial arts, who tries to lead his family out of the beleaguered country on a rescue ship that ends up in Hong Kong.
He & his brother in law become part of a small ex-pat group treated with suspicion as plague carriers in HK. Criminals probably Triad & US criminals enlist this group to return to Busan in order to retrieve an abandoned lorry which has $20 million (£15 million) stashed in it. Despite being told that they would share in the money when it is retrieved, the possibility of betrayal is all too real.
The comradely ex-pat group returns to Busan armed & using satellite phones. They find the city devasted and zombies still running amok. They finally locate the lorry and are about to drive it to the port to meet the ship that will pick them up.
This where the real action and adventure begins. A rescue unit of the South Korean army remaining in Busan has gone rogue in the four years. The unit has set up a fortified camp for survivors which is run in the style of the Mad Max movies. The unit sees the lorry moving through the city streets and thinking it contains food, hijacks it, and returns it to the camp. Some of the group escape but face the violent army unit. The army captain Jung-Seok is rescued by a very resourceful family who had escaped the repressive army camp in this dystopia & has hidden away. Ironically, the mother (Min-Jung), of his rescuing family was originally refused rescue with her family by Jung-Seok four years before, when he was fleeing Korea with his own family.
Jung-Seok feels guilty at this and offers to take the family out of Korea in the lorry after they have to retrieve it from the army and its psychopathic leaders (Sergeant Hwang & Captain Seo). Their plan is to use the lorry & get to the port then meet the pick-up ship. Their plans to infiltrate the hostile camp and journey is one of tense action as they do this. Jung-Seok seeks to redeem himself and tries to help the family to escape.
I can thoroughly recommend this movie. It is well-acted, exciting, frantic, thrilling, sad at times, and keeps our nerves on edge as you hope Jung-Seok & the family can succeed. Like the first movie and other excellent South Korean zombie etc, horror movies, the movie gets directly to the plot and action without the sometimes frustrating & seemingly slow build-up lead into the story as in many western movies & TV, which is refreshing.
I can envisage this may become a successful movie franchise.